Category Archives: Grocery and Household Item Budget

My sister and her husband are moving out of state and getting rid of almost everything they own, including all of the food in their house. They gave me and B over four jam packed boxes full of pantry items including tons of white rice, brown rice, tons of expensive spices, lots of canned goods, salt, vegetable oil, cereal, honey, pasta, pasta sauce and many other items!

We also gave a lot of spices and some pantry staples to my brother and his gf who just moved into a new apartment.

The items in the picture aren’t even half of what they gave us. These are all items we will use and would otherwise have to buy. It’s also food that isn’t being wasted.

She also gave me various other household items including an almost brand new microwave, clothes, printer and notebook paper, chemical free personal care items, expensive curtains, etc.

So I’m a little late in posting our June Grocery and Household Item budget. My research study was taking up all of my time but it’s sooo worth it. We were crazy busy in June so I’m especially proud that we did so well on out budget. It has been even harder to stick with our $200 a month budget because we are becoming really committed to eating healthy and eating healthy is expensive!

June Totals-

Spent- $205.57

Saved- $63.34 (not including savings from stores such as Aldi and Dollar Tree which are hard to calculate)

Remember- This budget is for two adults and we eat almost all of our meals at home. This also includes all household items such as toilet paper, soap, cleaning products, toothpaste, etc.

See How We Have Been Doing With Our $200 Budget So Far in 2013 With the Links Below-

Our goal is to spend only around $200 a month on all groceries and household items and this month we were $70 under! This was a little bit of an unusual month for us as far as our grocery budget goes. As exciting as that is, it’s only because of the Free $100 Publix Gift Card I won. This took $100 off of our budget so we would actually have been about $30 over this month otherwise.

We were on track to spend even less in May but towards the end of the month I recommitted myself to eating really, really healthy. Therefore, I didn’t want to eat some of the food we already had in the house and had to go out to buy more meats, veggies, etc. It did cost a little more but it was definitely worth it and I’m going to continue the healthy eating into June (and hopefully longer) so we will see how this affects the grocery budget next month.

We also ate out more this month than we have in probably an entire year. We had a lot to celebrate so I feel that it was entirely worth it. Eating out isn’t included in our grocery budget.

May Totals-

Spent- $129.84

Saved- $309.73 (not including savings from stores such as Aldi and Dollar Tree which are hard to calculate)

Remember- This budget is for two adults and we eat almost all of our meals at home. This also includes all household items such as toilet paper, soap, cleaning products, toothpaste, etc.

Some of Our Shopping Trips This Month (Not All of These Were From The Grocery Budget)-

Another month has flown by! Although we did go slightly over our budget this month I’m still content with what we spent because this has been a crazy month! See our weekend update for more info on that!

April Totals-

Spent- $211.25

Saved- $116.86 (not including savings from stores such as Aldi and Dollar Tree which are hard to calculate)

Remember- This budget is for two adults and we eat almost all of our meals at home. This also includes all household items such as toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, etc.

We spent a little more this month just because we have been sooo busy that we didn’t have as much time to bargain shop but we did get some great deals on some things that we will be eating in the coming month.

I can’t believe another month has flown by! I can’t believe it’s April already. I am pleased to announce that we were slightly under our $200 budget this month.

March Totals-

Spent- $195.27

Saved- $114.30 (not including savings from stores such as Aldi and Dollar Tree which are hard to calculate)

Remember- This budget is for two adults and yes we do eat three meals a day at home. We only ate out 3 times the entire month. I mention that not because we include what we spent eating out in the grocery budget but to show that we really do eat almost all of our meals at home. This also includes all household items such as toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, etc.

This February (I can’t believe that it is already March as I write this), we did a good job sticking to our grocery budget. Our Totals Were-

Spent- $221.62

Saved- $334.31 (not including savings from stores such as Aldi and Dollar Tree which are hard to calculate)

*Don’t forget that this is for all household items including personal care items, not just groceries*

We did go over our $200 goal for each month but it was actually for good reason. I stocked up on a ton of canned goods like I do every year during Publix’s Viva Italia Sale- click HERE to see the trip. We would have gone much farther over budget but a couple of our relatives had given us Publix gift cards totaling $45 that we used towards this stock up. This is the 3rd year I have stocked up during this sale and the canned items usually last us until next year’s trip, click here to see last years shopping trip.

I know that I am a little late posting this but I ended up getting sick at the end of the month and it took me a little while to get back in fighting shape. However, it did make me happy that we did so well on our grocery budget last month. I don’t usually post about our grocery budget but I’m going to try to do a monthly review every month this year in 2013.

Our goal for January was our usual grocery budget of $200. We put our receipts in a reused junk mail envelope so that we can total them up periodically to check our progress. This budget is for two adults and yes we do eat three meals a day at home. We only ate out 2-3 times the entire month. I mention that not because we include what we spent eating out in the grocery budget but to show that we really do eat almost all of our meals at home. This also includes all household items such as toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, etc. Here is the breakdown-

January Monthly Grocery and Household Item Budget- $200

Number of People in Our Household- 2

Number of Meals a Month- 85-90

People I know who don’t coupon think that this is an extremely low number. People who do coupon tend to think that this is a high number. I like to think that it is in the middle.

Why $200 a month?

Things that make our costs a little higher-

– We try to eat healthy with as little junk food as possible- This means more fresh vegetables and fruits that aren’t that cheap in where we live. Also healthy foods have fewer coupons than junk food.

– We really do eat at home all the time- This means our grocery budget is a little higher but our eating out budget is a lot lower.

– This budget isn’t just food- It’s also all household items we may need like soap.

Things that help keep our food costs low-

– Couponing, couponing, couponing- While there are less coupons for healthy food that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there, it just takes a little more work

– Shopping at Aldi a Discount Grocery Store- Food staples are simply lower at Aldi. Although Aldi doesn’t take coupons, most of the items we buy there aren’t items that usually have coupons anyways like flour and sugar.

– Shopping at Dollar Tree- Everything is $1. We can get regular sized laundry detergent for $1 and it works the same as name brand. We buy things there that are just plain cheaper than anywhere else even accounting for size and quality

– Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do or Do Without- We try not to waste food and we also try to make our meals around the items that we get deals.

– Stockpiling household items- We buy them at the lowest possible price to save $ in the long run

So how did we do this month?

We Spent- $192.33

We Saved $ 197.52 (this doesn’t even count stores like dollar tree that don’t show what you save over other stores)

So we actually came in under budget which is always good. Also, $20 of what we spent was on the last day of January on groceries that we were generally buying for next month, but as I said I was sick and didn’t think I would make it back to the store for a while and I didn’t.

Tune in at the end of Febuary to see how we do with our $200 grocery budget for next month.